project 1951 Pontiac Chieftain

[LightBulbFun]

Woooo!

bloody well done  

so awesome to see it move under its own power again, you must be very proud of yourself! 

[hairnet]

31 minutes ago, PhilA said:

hnnng (and daylight )

 

[hairnet]

what was the weird noise at 1:12?

 

[PhilA]

1 minute ago, hairnet said:

what was the weird noise at 1:12?

 

Opening the throttle a little. That's what this engine sounds like- pencil stuck into a desk fan.

 

Phil

[busmansholiday]

Congratulations, glad it's finally come to fruition. Been great reading these updates. No doubt there's still bits to do.

[PhilA]

Plenty to do yet! This is just the beginning of getting it back going.

 

Sitting up a year, the brakes don't work worth a damn, so that's on the to-do also.

 

Phil

[hairnet]

wilwood conversion

 

[PhilA]

Heh, no. 4 new brake cylinders and a clean should see it working well again. The brakes are huge.

 

Phil

[hairnet]

need another phil special commentary video like the intro one

 

[hairnet]

must find out where i took this

[hairnet]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willys_Aero

after 30 years of watching bttf II i find out what the car at the end was

such a div

what are the odds of finding one?

 

[PhilA]

Slim

[PhilA]

Cleaned the garage out, needed doing thoroughly.

Much nicer place to be in now, it was all dusty and horrible.

 

Took the opportunity to rinse the dust off the car also. Added another couple quarts of oil to bring the gearbox up to full (idle, warm, shifter in Dr). 

Need to top up the engine oil but it's right halfway between low and full so that's not a huge rush.

It's getting better. I think I may need to slightly adjust the bands but it's changing gear quite nicely now.

 

Phil

[hairnet]

5 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Slim

why thank you

[Crackers]

That is stunning. Want factor is through the roof..

[PhilA]

I'm having a think about things and I think possibly I've got some odd ignition related nonsense going on. I never had this behavior before (if you watch the video about halfway through I put my foot down gently and the car Rerr-Rerr-Rerr's down the street instead of being smooth. I'm going to double-check the distributor, and if I find nothing, disconnect the vacuum advance and see if that cures it. If it does then either something is shorting out under light throttle as the plate moves round.

It never moved before because everything was clamped wrong, and that's a point where I've got the most timing movement because the throttle is hardly open. As I open the throttle up the problem goes away.

 

--Phil

[PhilA]

...or it's far enough back it's tracking the spark to another plug- that would certainly explain the lumpy kick it gets.

[PhilA]

Nope, dizzy is all loose and falling to bits.

 

Cowboy been in there! (Before me)

 

Waiting for it to cool off enough to pull the dizzy out, gonna take it to bits and service it.

 

Phil

[beko1987]

8 minutes ago, PhilA said:

 

Waiting for it to cool off enough to pull the dizzy out, gonna take it to bits and service it.

 

Phil

In terms of this project that probably means as much to you as me fitting a new wiper blade because now winters here it became very quickly apparent my old one was fucked... 

Good to see it driving though, I guess with a car like this 1/4 of the work is setting it up once its moving. 

Bet the first proper big boy drive you do has every tool needed for almost anything that could go wrong in the boot. .. 

[hairnet]

33 minutes ago, PhilA said:

Nope, dizzy is all loose and falling to bits.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=3450369&cc=1378414&jsn=375

 

https://www.carid.com/1951-pontiac-chieftain-distributors/?filter=1&sub-model[Liter][]=4.4L

[PhilA]

5 hours ago, beko1987 said:

In terms of this project that probably means as much to you as me fitting a new wiper blade because now winters here it became very quickly apparent my old one was fucked... 

Good to see it driving though, I guess with a car like this 1/4 of the work is setting it up once its moving. 

Bet the first proper big boy drive you do has every tool needed for almost anything that could go wrong in the boot. .. 

Pulled the distributor out.

Took the thing to bits. This is the plate that moves under vacuum. It's not meant to be all bent up. I beat it a bit with a hammer

Reassembled a lot more flat.

All put back together and running.

Redid the timing. Still getting to be a problem, ran out of time to troubleshoot the fuel.

 

Phil

 

[PhilA]

 

Odd misfire that clears itself. Gears change nicely though.

 

Phil

[somewhatfoolish]

9 hours ago, PhilA said:

 

Odd misfire that clears itself.

Dodgy HT lead or plug?

[PhilA]

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Dodgy HT lead or plug?

Discovered the hard way the HT leads don't insulate any more. So quite possibly. Pulling leads off as it's idling isn't an option.

There's gotta be a better way. The plugs probably need gapping too

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

7 hours ago, PhilA said:

Discovered the hard way the HT leads don't insulate any more. So quite possibly. Pulling leads off as it's idling isn't an option.

There's gotta be a better way. The plugs probably need gapping too

 

Phil

Definitely time for a new set of leads then. If they're giving you a belt when touched they've had it and you're likely to be chasing misfires round in circles until they're changed.

Open the bonnet with the engine running in the dark and you'll quite likely be able to see them arcing to ground in several places.

[PhilA]

I'm just trying to figure why it would do it at low rpm and not higher rpm. I guess I can't get the dynamics of what it's doing in my head.

 

--Phil

[GBJ]

3 hours ago, PhilA said:

I'm just trying to figure why it would do it at low rpm and not higher rpm. I guess I can't get the dynamics of what it's doing in my head.

 

--Phil

With eight cylinders firing you can't hear the misfire once the revs pick up.

[PhilA]

I decided to focus on the gearbox this afternoon.

Took a look at the linkage that combines the throttle and gearbox modulator.

I had adjusted it badly first time round- there a specific procedure in the manual but the individual pieces of the linkage are particularly worn and sloppy. 

This time I set the relationship between the gearbox and the throttle better- now it changes gear smoothly, getting into 4th by 20 (as it should) without thumping into gears like it was. It was changing gear as if I had the throttle held down a little. The additional compensation pressure must've been holding the rear band on slightly, before it bled off gently. The rear drum is slightly out of true causing it to snatch, that was the "misfire" in 4th. It's still only running on 7 but that's a problem for another day.

 

Now it shifts gently (even the 2-3 shift is fairly docile) with gearshifts held until higher road speed if the throttle is pressed down. 4-3 downshift works.

 

I need to work on removing the looseness from the linkage and that should help significantly; then I should be able to set the adjustment correctly.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

14 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Definitely time for a new set of leads then. If they're giving you a belt when touched they've had it and you're likely to be chasing misfires round in circles until they're changed.

Open the bonnet with the engine running in the dark and you'll quite likely be able to see them arcing to ground in several places.

I took a look at it in the dark tonight and there's nothing going astray that I can see, not even St Elmo's Fire.

 

Something else is crappy but it's all old and all questionable so that I can sort- linkages first though.

 

Phil

[PhilA]

The mechanism had a lot of slack in. Problem was, the threaded rod wasn't holding straight. So, I cut up a spring from a door latch.

Fitted it in place and now it holds the thing in line.

Adjusted the rest of the linkage up, added a couple more springs and now it's a lot better.

 

Idle is better also after I pushed all the wires back into the distributor cap fully...

 

Phil